


an odd place to sleep

by mangabreadroll



Category: Constantine (TV), Hellblazer
Genre: Comics-verse and TV-verse hybrid, Gen, Just dabblers and handlers of dabblers out here supporting each other, No ships in here, Short scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 21:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30011280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangabreadroll/pseuds/mangabreadroll
Summary: Zee finds John in a rare moment of peace.
Relationships: Chas Chandler & John Constantine, John Constantine & Zatanna Zatara
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	an odd place to sleep

Zatanna traced her finger over the words. _Words can never hurt me_.

_Sdrow nac reven truh em_.

If she wanted the words to work, she'd have to believe it.

_Reven truh em_ , she recited to herself, for good measure.

She underlined the phrase and flipped the book shut. She packed the book into her satchel, followed by three more books that were lying open and dog-eared on the table.

She picked up the vial John had given her and turned it over in her hand. How it was worth "payment", she couldn't tell yet, but as she held it she could feel the humming of the dried-up blood through the glass, the same humming she felt in the sliver of time between seeing a spell in her head and speaking the words out loud.

She didn't want to think too much about what he'd traded to get her this.

Zee pocketed the vial in her satchel. "John," she called, climbing back down the stairs into the basement. The makeshift light was still on, John bent over the chalk circle he'd drawn earlier.

Was there anything more she could do? Not to say that John couldn’t handle it – she could bet on coming back the next day to find the basement cleared out and John lounging on the couch with a bashed-in face and a bloody grin. There was no human need for pause in this man’s world, not when every moment you spent alone was empty space for old shame and fear to come creeping in. Which is why his reassurance hadn’t reassured her.

“I’m heading home, ” she decided to say. She walked over to where he was sitting.

John had fallen asleep. He sat cross-legged on the edge of the circle, loose pages from an open book spilling onto his lap. One hand rested limply in the middle of a page turn, the other supporting the weight of his head, which was dangerously close to dropping nose-first into his book.

Zee paused. Seeing John not in the midst of extricating himself from the wrath of the supernatural, running from the wrath of the flawed human, or just throwing himself into his next game of stalemate, was not something you saw every day.

Having gone through all these things with him over the past three days, this was bound to happen eventually.

As far as she knew, John was always on the move. By some unfortunate arrangement by God, people always seemed to get roped into grievances with him that God promised they would never get out of. And when he was not racing to push innocent people out of the trail of disaster he was constantly leaving behind, he was looking for his next problem to solve, anything to escape from the numbness he felt when the storm had settled.

There were rare moments when John crashed that she remembered clearly. There was one time he’d invited her and Chas for a round of drinks fresh off of a case they’d solved with her help, a usual activity they did according to Chas but before then never with this much enthusiasm. By the end of the night, she and Chas had realised halfway through their conversation that John was already slumped over the table, dead to the world. She’d insisted on helping Chas to carry John back to the car, where he sprawled on the backseat muttering incoherently every now and then up until Chas dropped her home.

There was another time where she caught him taking a quick nap in the House of Mystery, walls down but arms folded across his chest, but even then he was restless, twitching and groaning and eyes squeezed shut. He’d startled awake at the sound of the door when she cracked it open an inch, and before she could say anything, he’d started telling her about what he’d discovered while she was away, as if nothing had happened.

She never really got to see John this quiet. Most nights, John Constantine snored for as long as those smoker’s lungs could carry him through the night and woke up to a series of vicious coughing fits that she was afraid one day he’d just keel over from suffocation, if the nights he’d crashed at her place were any indication. Sometimes he also had a habit of stripping down to his boxers or the family inheritance before collapsing onto a nearby couch or bed, but that was another story.

She crouched down next to him. She was sure she’d caught glimpses of this John throughout the few times they’d spent together – split seconds of plain, simple fear, a flash of unmistakeable regret and guilt. The lines on his face were smoother, no trace of the familiar scowl on his lips.

She considered carrying him to the couch upstairs – there was no way his back would be in a forgiving mood when he woke up – but she wasn’t Chas.

Carefully, she took the book from his lap, gathered up the strewn-about pages and set it aside on the floor. Looping her arms under his, she pulled him a few inches away from the circle lest he fall face-first into one of the circles of Hell. John shifted in her grip, but he didn’t stir. She pulled him a little further back so his legs straightened out and laid him on his back.

Chas would insist on dumping the man onto the couch, but with all the things that were going on, they both knew he’d get all cranky if he woke up somewhere where he couldn’t get back to work on the spot. Still, lying on the concrete floor didn’t seem like a more comfortable option.

She looked round the edge of the circle and spotted John’s trenchcoat crumpled in a heap on the other end. She folded it up and tucked it under his head. John shifted onto his side with a sigh, drawing his arms closer to his face and burying his cheek into the fabric. She remained crouched next to him for a brief moment as his body relaxed, watching the stillness that was John Constantine.

Zee got up to see Chas halfway down the basement stairs, looking for a second like he was vehemently opposed to letting John sleep right next to a chalk circle but slowly resigning. “He makes you feel less like punching him when he’s asleep, doesn’t he?” he said.

Zee could only sigh in response. “Tell him to take a walk when he wakes up.” She met Chas at the foot of the staircase, and went on up to the ground floor.

**Author's Note:**

> Today I give you out of the blue a Constantine fic, tomorrow? Who knows........ 
> 
> In all seriousness I was inspired by seeing a bunch of fics about John's vulnerable side, one of the recent ones being J_D_McCormick's Somnolence. Also I only have a basic grasp of these characters please go easy on me kdjsjskaj
> 
> If you could leave a comment, it would make me cry tears of joy ;-;


End file.
